It was an ordinary day. An ordinary day where some kids would fall in love, some would break hearts. Baby's would be born, and some poor Joe Schmo would end up at the city mortuary, just a block away from my office.
The office had been open three weeks. Office was a grand term for a room in a flea pit run down building in Queens, and in that time not a single rotten soul had crossed that threshold but my own.
You leave the force, and you expect a good pal to throw you a bone now and then, but hey, this was New York, and everybody was in it for themselves.
Money was getting tighter than a nun's kiss, and the rent was due.
It wouldn't be long before I'd be back down at Arnie's, this time pawning the retirement watch the boys in the precinct had given me. The one to say, 'Job well done, Sam; great work getting your leg in the way of that bullet.'
I scrunched up another ball of paper and made a shot at the wastepaper basket. It joined the rest of them sitting on the floor. There was a knock at my door; a tall silhouette stood in the glass. Was my luck about to change? Sure was, but not for the better, because even though I didn't know it at the time, that was death knocking at my door.
I sat straight at my desk, flattened my lapels, and pushed my hair back. I spied the empty bottle of gut rot on its side on my desk, and that quickly disappeared.
"Come in." I called, and the shadow duly obliged.
Now I'd seen some dames in my time, but believe me when I tell you, this was a dame that would blow your wig.
Blonde hair curled at her shoulders, ruby red lips, and cheeks you could shave with. Her clothes would have covered a month's rent, so I guessed this broad had money, or at least her old man did, and he wasn't afraid to throw it around.
"Are you Sam Stockley? The Sam Stockley that solved the Waterhouse murders?"
The voice was pure transatlantic and woke up parts of me I hadn't noticed were sleeping. If this broad could talk the birds from the trees, her eyes would be the things to keep them there. Green and dazzling like a cab's headlights in a dark alley. And the voice knew what it was talking about. The Waterhouse murders had been hot news for a few months, a lifetime ago.
"Sure, that's me; what can I do for you, Miss...?"
"Missus. I need the services of a private dick, and your name was suggested to me by a friend of my father's."
"Well, I owe this friend of your father's a hot meal if he's sending me a customer like you. What exactly is it I can do for you, Mrs...?" I invited her to fill in the blank, but she gave the implication a swerve.
"It's my husband. He's having an affair."
The guys had warned me this was the track I'd be running--divorces, affairs, spouses on the right side of the wrong bed.
"Well, why would you think that?" I asked her. She reached into her handbag and brought out a handkerchief to dab at her dry eyes.
"A wife can tell Mr. Stockley, and I need you to follow him and bring me the proof."
